PRETENDING TO BE AN ELF AND OTHER INHUMANS
Played a game inside. The rules were scraped together from a fading memory of B/X and scratched onto the back of commissary receipts. The dice were made of folded paper and smuggled ink.
The setting was an endless, lightless oubliette because nobody had the energy to pretend about forests or sunshine. Still don't. Standard fantasy races didn't make sense to us. We needed things that felt right for the dark. My player ran a team of three characters, to give him a sporting chance against my monsters. They died frequently. Character generation was returned to often.
Here are the inhumans we used.
Elves
They do not die of old age, they just stretch out. Thin as wire, tall as a ceiling, skin like spoiled milk. They don’t sleep, which means they are always watching. They remember everything and forgive nothing. They resent humans for being allowed to die.
- Hit Dice: 1d6.
- You do not sleep. You cannot be surprised while the party rests.
- Immune to disease and paralysis.
- When you kill a thinking creature, you are compelled to take something from it to remember them by. If you do not, lose 1 point of Wisdom permanently.
Dwarfs
Not born, but dug up. Compact blocks of muscle and spite. They don’t have blood, they have wet sand. They hoard metal because they think it’s their missing bones. Unforgiving, unyielding, completely devoid of humor.
- Hit Dice: 1d8.
- Constitution is always 16.
- You weigh 400 pounds. You sink like a stone and cannot swim. If you fall in deep water, you will walk along the bottom until you drown or emerge.
- You take -1 damage from all slashing and piercing weapons. You can smell raw gold or iron through a foot of solid rock.
Halflings
Feral, rat-things that live in the walls of the world. They aren't cute. They have two rows of teeth and eat whatever is dead. If there is a gap, they are in it. If there is a dropped crumb, they have taken it.
- Hit Dice: 1d6.
- You can fit through any gap a human skull could pass through.
- You have a 5-in-6 chance to move completely silently. You have a 5-in-6 chance to hide in shadows.
- Second Breakfast: You must eat twice as much as a human every day, but it can be rotten meat, insects, or bone without making you sick. If you miss a meal, you will attempt to eat the boots of your companions or worse.
Goblins
Goblins are spontaneous generation. They coalesce from the damp, the rot, and the misery of the deep cells when no one is looking. Hairless, translucent skin stretched tight over fragile bird-bones. They have no eyes, just smooth, wet indentations. They click their needle-teeth to see the shape of the room. They hate everything that was born with a mother.
- Hit Dice: 1d4.
- You are entirely blind, but you map the world perfectly through echolocation. You are immune to darkness, visual illusions, and blinding effects. If you are deafened, you are completely helpless and terrified.
- You can perfectly mimic any voice or sound you have heard in the dark. You usually use the weeping of other prisoners to lure things into ambushes.
- Your bones snap like dry twigs; you take +1 damage from all bludgeoning attacks. However, you can instantly and painlessly dislocate every joint in your body to slip out of iron restraints, manacles, or narrow pipes.